It’s been curious to me that since Streetcar came back to life several weeks ago that nothing had yet appeared on the Topic “Toowoomba Christian Fellowship” until Thursday June 22nd.

My well known curiosity often sends me down rabbit holes seeking answers and truth so here we go again.

It is now almost two years since David Falk’s “retirement” in July 2015, and much has changed.

So what public profile is now available about TCF if I come looking for information and know little about what sort of church this group presents itself as?

Starting with Falk’s love of self promotion on each of the TCF website, YouTube, and Facebook I did a quick check of these sources of “information” and the difference is very obvious. Quite rapidly after Falk’s exit from centre stage, it was reported by several on Streetcar, including myself, that any trace of him was obliterated from any of these. The TCF website is now the standard CF website which gives plenty of spiel but little information, and gives no indication of who is in the pastoral/minister role at Toowoomba. Gone are the video clips of Falk and his young scions Baker, Perrin and Smith (and an occasional Vic Hall for good measure); gone is the ongoing Falk blog; gone is the promotion of all things RFI and especially the literature of Vision One/Restoration Publishing. In effect the TCF website is now a clone of the BCF website in content and format; lots of spiel but no real information.

YouTube is very much the same; no sign of Falk whatsoever, and the remaining video clips are 4 to 8 years old featuring mainly David Baker, Luke Perrin and Nathan Smith (and occasionally their wives singing). This is also the case on the BCF website in relation to the YouTube video clips --- nothing younger than 4 years old, and ironically most of those posts including those of Vic Hall, are reposted from the Toowoomba CF YouTube site.

Facebook is another indicator of change. The previous TCF Facebook page was readily accessible on line, and was very similar to the Church website with Falk as the centrepiece of all things TCF. The site was characterised by the cheerleaders who posted “Likes” being the same group of young people who had gone through the Youth programme ---- never a “like” from a non-TCF person. Now, you can’t even get onto the TCF Facebook page unless you sign up to Facebook. I used to be on Facey, but discovered two years ago that Facebook had sold off my FB contact list without my permission, so I cut my account immediately. If any Streetcar readers are also on Facebook you need to know that FB treats your contact list as commercial property which it can sell off to the highest bidder, which certainly in America includes the Intelligence agencies. On the other hand the BCF Facebook page is readily accessible and now looks more like what the TCF one did ---- including the questionable “likes” by planted cheerleaders.

This is not to say that Vic has been successful in obliterating Falk from RFI history, even though Jonathan Hall has clearly done a hatchet job on the public profile of all things TCF. If you ask Mr. Google about Falk there is still a lot there, which will continue to cause Vic embarrassment and keep the curious at TCF asking “Why did Vic “retire” David Falk?..... especially when he was sick?” I will return to that very important question a little later.

A significant factor I couldn’t discern from this “public” information was “Who is the pastor/minister at TCF?” I’m guessing that it is David Baker, especially because of his close association to Vic Hall and all published Restoration Publishing material, including “Restoring My Soul”. It may yet be Lachlan Perrin, as he is currently listed on the TCF Management Committee as Vice President, and he has all the characteristics of one of Vic’s “up and coming Wise Guys”, and is one of Vic’s ‘writing partners’ on Restoration Publishing books since Wylie and then Falk dropped out of that list.

What is clear from the public records of TCF business which everyone can access on the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit (ACNC) website {Go to: --- ACNC: Search the Register, at .... http://www.acnc.gov.au/ACNC/FindCharity ... 3597112640 and type in Toowoomba Christian Fellowship Inc as the Name} that there has been a significant change in the Management Committee of TCF. That Management Committee is now: ---
Name
Position
BAKER, DAVID
Treasurer
BIRD, TOM
Committee member
FLYNN, ROB
Committee member
HAY, ANDREW
President
HAY, DON
Committee member
HAY, JOSHUA
Committee member
LONSDALE, BARRY
Committee member
NEVILLE, JOHN
Committee member
PERRIN, LACHLAN
Vice president
RIGDEN, GLYNN
Committee member
SMITH, NATHAN
Secretary
SWEET, HOWARD
Committee member
WATKINS, BRUCE
Committee member

Bear in mind that this 13 person management committee is set up identically to every other CF management Committee around Australia, so that at least 7 of the members represent Vic Hall and RFI, and the remainder represent the local CF. On this Committee you can bet your concordance that the President, Andrew Hay, the Vice President, Lachlan Perrin, the Treasurer, David Baker, and the Secretary, Nathan Smith are all Vic’s men. Who the other three are I’m not sure, but readers from TCF I’m sure can work that out, especially if those people are not TCF people. Additionally having three members of the Hay family on the same committee represents a voting bloc which will always follow Andrew Hay’s lead, another factor which “stacks” the Committee in Vic’s and RFI’s favour. Bearing in mind that this committee also has to represent the two satellite TCF churches at Kingaroy and Warwick, which also weakens the voice of the congregation actually at Toowoomba.

What is very significant about this Management Committee is the appointment of Andrew Hay from one of the satellites at Warwick, rather than someone from Toowoomba. Andrew Hay has been an elder since 1991, and is very clearly “Vic’s man” and has been put there by Vic, regardless of what the Toowoomba people may want or think. He has the reputation of being a ‘hatchet man’ and was Vic’s prime agent in absorbing the very successful Stanthorpe CF, under Stephen Hall, into the Warwick CF. His treatment of Stephen Hall in that process was a significant factor in Stephen’s breakdown, coincident with the disappearance of Stanthorpe CF. Andrew was the ideal hatchet man to cut Stephen down to size after Stephen had set up the structure of the business of Restoration Fellowships International (Australia) by 2002, breaking free from the Associated Mission Churches Australasia (AMCA). This was Vic’s way of destroying the last traces of Immanuel and Ray J. Jackson, who had set up AMCA, and asserting that Vic was in charge and that the source and seat of power had shifted from Melbourne to Brisbane. This has rankled MCF ever since. I suggest that there is little likelihood of Toowoomba becoming the independent entity which Falk would have had everyone at TCF believing, as Andrew Hay will always ensure for Vic that TCF jumps to Vic’s tune.

It may be that with Andrew Hay as President of TCF and Lachlan Perrin as vice-President, that Lachlan is under tutelage to ensure that he is ‘Vic’s man’ in Toowoomba, rather than “one of our own” as the remaining congregation will want to think, as Lachlan has grown up there.

Although Nathan Smith remains as Secretary on the Management Committee, recent reliable information from Queensland has told me that Nathan and Penny Smith are to be moved to Brisbane, as the falling congregation numbers and low state of finances at TCF have seriously changed who can be supported on the tithe. Nathan and Penny have suffered severely from what happened in July 2015. David Baker replacing Penny Smith as Treasurer removes the nepotism of the Falk family from the control of the books. This Falk family nepotism could well have got TCF into real trouble with the ATO and the ACNC if the financial impropriety Falk was alleged to have committed, and used to justify his “retirement”, was ever investigated. If that was what did happen it was necessary that Vic Hall as CEO of Restoration Fellowships International (Australia), the overarching body of the CFs, had to report it to both the ACNC and the ATO. If this wasn’t done then the ACNC could withdraw RFI and TCF’s standing as registered organisation deemed to be a charitable, not-for profit organisation and tax exempt concessions, and their standing as registered businesses would be in question. Financial impropriety or fraud is a breach of Federal Law and open to investigation by the ATO. If those two entities were penalised it would set off a domino effect of collapse of every CF as a registered business enjoying the ATO and ACNC privileges.

This raises the question “Exactly what financial impropriety was David Falk alleged to have committed to justify his “retirement”?” So far nothing specific has leaked out, but there were plenty of possible factors as indicators, such as: ---
a. How was David Falk able to get a variously reported accumulated salary in the order of $750,000.00 per year, when all the additional exempt benefits are taken into account? Hardly enough when he consistently bragged about how much more his net worth would be if he were a CEO in the private sector.
b. How was he able to purchase and finance his 40 acre property adjacent to the TCF property and expand the mansion Tara on it, as well as use church labour and industry connections of members to undertake those extensive alterations and improvements to Tara?... (Not forgetting the large wine cellar at Tara and high expense multiple ski trips and overseas holidays for him and the Falk entourage)
c. How was he able to run “the cattle on a thousand hills” beef enterprise on bush properties North of TCF?.... as well as his Pawling Labrador Breeding enterprise (in his own name and for his own profit, perhaps?) and also using church assets and voluntary church labour in the process of both.
d. What does he now live on? It’s hard to imagine him reporting to Centrelink for unemployment benefits, unless perhaps he is hiring himself out as an electrician again? You’d have to wonder about his competence at his trade after many years of not doing it. It could indicate that he salted away a lot of revenue gained in the employ of TCF/RFI, but how legitimately when his daughter ran the books? --- and what training did she have to do so?
e. What level of indebtedness does he have to members of the TCF congregation who made him loans, ostensibly to build the TCF worship centre? Many of those who loaned have gone into considerable debt giving away inheritances and risking mortgages on their homes and businesses, which was foreshadowed in the way Falk acted in relation to offloading Café Forte onto the church members who set up the Veraison, only for them to lose everything when that failed in 2015.
e. There is another possibility, not directly linked to TCF itself, and which has only surfaced through some of the revelations about the RFI activities in South East Asia which we would not have heard of if Thanomere had not come to Streetcar. In the two years before Falk was dismissed there were several comments from Streetcar members which suggested that Falk was getting bored with things at TCF and was thinking of going overseas, but not for holidays. It was in this time frame that he started getting very much involved in overseas trips to Malaysia and Singapore. While there he was heavily promoting Restoration Publishing and it was around this time that the small Singapore CF made a $70,000 donation to BCF, possibly to support the surge of activity to build the new Centre in Nonga at Rabaul. Word filtered back to Vic that Falk was developing his “own messenger version” of what was coming from Brisbane, and appeared to be gathering the South East Asian CFs under his wing as their AGGELOS Messenger. If this was accurate reporting then Falk was usurping Vic’s role as the AGGELOS messenger of all the RFI churches, especially those outside Australia. With Murray Wylie’s demise Falk was clearly seeing himself as the #2 man, and Vic’s likely successor, but his level of presumption was most likely a reflection of his hubris and narcissistic tendencies, rather than something that fitted with Vic’s thinking about the future, especially after his death. So perhaps with these vain flights of fancy, especially when the word got back to Vic, Falk was placing his neck in Vic’s noose. I recently heard through a reliable source in BCF that Vic had indicated two years before July 2015 that he was planning to replace Falk at TCF. A scenario worthy of a James Bond or Le Carrè novel, and who can really know? As always with Vic and all things RFI, look below the surface, especially if money or power is involved. The other fiendish twist to the drama was that when DGF had his heart attack in July Vic was very solicitous that he rest and recover, but very shortly after Falk “retired” without warning, and the books at Toowoomba had been secured..... the rest is history!

There is clearly some level of financial disruption in whatever happened at TCF when Falk was dismissed as the 2016 Financial Statement of 30/6/16 shows that TCF ended the financial Year with a deficit of $1,113,225.00, compared with a deficit of $108,900.00 for the 2015 Financial year --- two significant deficits in a row which cover the time of Falk’s dismissal. You can check this for yourself from the ACNC website given earlier in this post. What makes this even more curious is that when you crosscheck The Brisbane Christian Fellowship ACNC Statement (see: --- https://www.acnc.gov.au/RN52B75Q?ID=01F ... 9&noleft=1 ) and then check the BCF 2016 Financial Statement, you will see that in the 2016 financial year BCF had a loan to TCF of $485,436.60 and in the 2015 financial year had also made a loan of $63,936.60 to TCF. Despite these loans propping up TCF, it still made substantial deficits in both the 2015 and 2016 financial years. How did this happen? Not hard to suspect financial impropriety with those figures, or who might be involved!! In normal business enterprises this is when the forensic accountants start thoroughly examining the books. Whether TCF as a “business enterprise” could ever be considered “normal”, especially as it is supposed to be a Church and under the control of David Garth Falk, is a highly debatable point!!!! If the Annual General meeting of TCF runs true to the CF–wide practice of such meetings, then it is most unlikely that many of the ordinary congregation members of TCF had any idea of this sort of financial jiggery-pokery. Those AGMs are by invitation only, and limited to elders or those members of the congregation who can be trusted to keep their mouths shut.

The uncertainty represented in the list above when existing in the minds of the congregation members has undermined the faith of the congregation as they continue to be “treated like mushrooms”. For many in the congregation there is the distinct stench of cover-up and bad faith. With Andrew Hay in charge that stench will continue, as any attempt to broach the subject, including the repayment of loans made by members of the congregation is shut down with high level coercion. Any attempt by anyone game enough to clarify any of this with Vic and BCF has been met the same way with either “Don’t ask! Don’t tell!!” or “Move on! Nothing to see here!!!” That change in those in charge at TCF, reflecting that Vic Hall now controls TCF, also hangs heavy in the air of The Chapel

It’s hardly surprising that there is a heavy spirit of disillusionment and pain in the congregation, while those in charge carry on as if all is rosy. My most recent information suggests that as many as 12 families (about 45 people) have left since Falk’s dismissal, and that numbers which were once as high as 250 are now about 80-90 (including Children). Given the grandiose extension of the church building the congregation must be rattling around like dried peas in a tobacco tin, especially when you take out the numbers on stage supporting the “performance”.

Clearly the members of the congregation deserve our support, and the heavy weight of spiritual responsibility hangs around the necks of those in charge. For those who have left it has been no easy process; for those remaining I’d suggest that feelings of betrayal, disappointment and sadness are haunting them. Given the current teaching being fed through “Restoring My Soul” there will be little to bring the balm of Gilead to the congregation ---- instead they will have to swallow the line that they are “participating in the sufferings of Christ”. These sufferings have been wrought on them by those who claim to be Christ’s messengers. With messengers like that, who needs adversaries?

Hopefully those TCF members reading this will know that their situation is understood and that they are cared about by those on Streetcar --- not only caring for but ready to support if the situation becomes more than they can live with.

I am wide open to any feedback on this post, which is as good as I could cobble together from what sources I have, especially if more accurate information can correct my mistakes.

Thanks for this Robocop .... certainly helps to see how the TCF Management Committee is dominated by BCF/RFI (i.e. Vic Hall)

I'm wondering what has happened to the Restoration Publishing set up at Toowoomba. Is it still operating? "Restoring my Soul" has become boringly repetitive, and looks like it is on a constant Cut and Paste cycle.

The publication output of new products has shrunk, and those recently published are nothing new, just more of the same old same old.
(See:--- http://www.christianresources.co/ )

Your connection is not secure
The owner of www.visionone.org.au has configured their website improperly.
To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.

Now, the last time I looked (six months ago perhaps) it was NOT misconfigured. This has to be a recent change…

Maybe some of the streetcar folk who use Internet Exploder as a browser (I don't) might like to report that address as "unsafe" on the authority of that genuine report... and with a bit of luck Microsoft might log them as being a danger?